On the morning I leave Watamu for Kilifi, it has just drizzled. Watamu in the early morning seems sleepy and quiescent like it is recovering from the hangover of a previous night’s fete. It has a worn fabric of placidity that is so tender and so luring that it makes you want to protect it from the alternative, from the chaos, wishing it never awakens to hard modernity.
The sort where you find yourself whispering when talking to someone, or unconsciously frowning at the occasional tuk tuks or bikes that go up and down the road with a careless roar that threatens to tear off the fabric of its feathery ethereality. The tarmac looks clean and unusually serene with the small pools of water. Almost all its main-street shops are still closed and the leaves of the jasmine trees (surprisingly common in the area) line the tarmac drip with light drops of water that fall on the ground, forming small wet patches around. Everything is asleep, and anything that is miraculously up, looks sleepy. Even the tuk tuk driver who stops to pick me up at the Jacaranda road junction (to take me to the Ola petrol station for the shuttle on the B8 to Kilifi) looks like he will soon doze off on the wheel.
A guest getting a Swedish massage at the Silver Spa. Photo | Pool
For the traveler using the SGR, for Sh800, one can get a shuttle straight outside of the terminus, and in one and a half hours, they will have comfortably covered the 75 kilometers to Kilifi – crossing the Kilifi Bridge that spans the scenic Kilifi Creek – and landing at the Lexo energy station, and if you cross the road, there is the large Naivas supermarket (that is a Kilifi landmark) for all of one’s shopping needs.
There is also ‘The Titanic,’ the convenient hotel straddling town-and-creek, that will never sink your pocket.
And of all the places on the Coastal strip for holiday seekers, Kilifi, in the middle of ‘mad’ Malindi (and all its vibe Italiano), and momentous Mombasa with all its beach brio, is easily the quietest of the town trio!
On Bofa Road, there is the Baobab Sea Lodge, the Black Marine Sea Resort, and Kilifi Bay Beach resort.
The most magnificent yet homely seaside villa in Kilifi is Rozzie’s, with cozy yet stately interiors, great outside sitting and eating areas, and a pool lounge area by the sea that is both sweet and splendid – like if nature were the finest of champagnes.
The biggest and most luxurious Kilifi hotel is the Silver Palm Spa-and-Resort, right at the end of the road.
It has the pink-tinged air of entering a Moorish palace, with lush green gardens adorned with palm trees.
The rooms are an artistic treat, with all amenities including big bathtubs, with some directly leading into the swimming pool, which is magical.
Ground bridges lead one out to the sand where the sea sits like a stone, spreading across the horizon.
Unlike many other places on the Coast, here the view of the ocean is unbroken—no boats or little islands – so that one feels, like Columbus or Ibn Battuta, that you could sail out straight to India from here.
The food, served in two different restaurant spaces, is good. And Silver Palms really does have the spas.
For example, an ‘African Vigour Swedish massage’ from professional masseuse Irene is almost medical in making one with back pains feel relieved, and fully reinvigorated.
Silver Palms is truly a six-star spa-and-sea resort.
If you prefer a cozy, smaller place, that almost feels like a home, then there are the Katoa holiday homes.
They are next to a rocky patch of ocean, with wide, clean rooms, a small patio for meal eating, an actual living room (with a small bar), and one chef, and a friendly lady called Frida ready to attend to all needs.
The proprietor, Bwana Kelly, can be spotted like a helicopter hovering around or just passing by, to say a word and be assured that the guests are comfortable.
Governor Gideon Mungaro, sworn in this past Thursday, has a Kilifi home where his hospitality is on graceful display to guests.
Cecil Miller, the famous lawyer, also has a fabulous house here right next to the sea, that presumably soothes and sweeps all sorts of worries into the bottomless fathoms of the Indian Ocean, leaving him with a mind within which, in the oft-quoted Havi phrase, “the Law is very clear”, like his sea view.
In short, any apparitions of stress and care one carries from the city cannot see the light of day in Kilifi.
But if you are the sporty type, then there’s also Salty’s Kite Surfing Village and Beach Bar, where one can have a drink with friends or ride the waves, until the tides come rolling. BY DAILY NATION